WHEN I GROW UP

Grace did not want to return to St. Catherine’s.

She stood in the guesthouse kitchen holding a mug she had forgotten to drink from while Matteo explained where Rizzo was headed.

“No.”

He blinked. “No?”

“You are not using me as bait.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You were about to.”

“I was going to ask why he would go there.”

Grace set down the mug. “Because he knows I worked there. Because Elena died there. Because men like him love places where they think everyone else is emotional and therefore stupid.”

Matteo studied her.

“You really were a good nurse.”

“I was excellent.”

The correction came so quickly he almost smiled.

Mia sat at the table between Isabella and Thomas, making a blanket fort out of linen napkins. The failed intrusion had frightened her for ten minutes. Then Isabella, to everyone’s astonishment, had crawled beneath a kitchen table with her and remained there until Mia stopped shaking.

Matteo had arrived in time to see his sixty-eight-year-old mother on the floor in pearls, holding a stuffed rabbit and pretending the tablecloth was a castle wall.

No one had commented.

Some family miracles survived better without witnesses mentioning them.

Grace lowered her voice. “There was a records annex beneath the old emergency department. It was closed after a flood two years ago.”

“What was stored there?”

“Archived intake forms, security footage, ambulance logs. Mostly records waiting to be digitized.”

“From Elena’s night?”

“Yes.”

Matteo’s gaze sharpened.

“Could Rizzo know something survived?”

“He could know something existed.”

Dominic entered the kitchen, changed into a clean shirt but still carrying the bruise on his cheek.

“The hospital’s legal department says someone requested Elena’s ambulance records yesterday using a subpoena that doesn’t exist.”

Grace stared at him.

“Who?”

“The request came from a consulting firm owned by one of Rizzo’s shells.”

Matteo picked up his coat.

Grace stepped in front of him.

“If you go storming into a hospital with armed men, you’ll destroy whatever chance we have of learning what he wants.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I go in.”

“No.”

She folded her arms. “Interesting. You get to reject my plan without hearing it, but I’m supposed to stand quietly while you risk yourself?”

“Yes.”

Grace stared at him.

Dominic murmured, “Wrong answer.”

Matteo shot him a look.

Grace continued, “I still know people there. I can get into the old annex without setting off every alarm. You can wait nearby.”

“No.”

“Matteo.”

“No.”

Mia’s small voice came from beneath the table.

“Daddy.”

Everyone stopped.

She crawled out of the napkin fort.

“Grace says when I’m scared, I have to use words instead of being bossy.”

Dominic turned away to hide a smile.

Matteo stared at his daughter.

Mia added, “You’re being bossy.”

Isabella looked fascinated by the ceiling.

Grace pressed her lips together.

Matteo exhaled slowly.

“Fine.”

Mia nodded. “Good job.”

He pointed at Dominic. “Not one word.”

“I’m saying nothing.”

The plan changed.

Grace entered St. Catherine’s through the employee parking structure at three fifteen that afternoon wearing borrowed navy scrubs beneath a long coat. Matteo waited in a plain sedan across the street with Dominic and two trusted security men.

He hated every second.

Grace’s former supervisor, Helen Park, met her near the service elevator.

The two women hugged hard.

“I thought I’d never see you in this building again,” Helen said.

“Same.”

“You look terrible.”

“Thank you.”

“That man outside yours?”

Grace glanced toward the windows. “Unfortunately.”

Helen studied her face. “That is not an unfortunately face.”

“Can we commit minor administrative misconduct before you analyze my personal life?”

“Absolutely.”

They went downstairs.

The old records annex smelled of damp cardboard and disinfectant. Rows of metal shelving stretched beneath fluorescent lights.

Helen unlocked a cage marked 2019–2024 SECURITY MEDIA.

“Most of this should have been destroyed after digitization,” she said. “But the flood screwed up chain-of-custody, so legal ordered us to keep everything.”

Grace found the month Elena died.

There were fourteen storage drives.

One was missing.

Her stomach dropped.

Helen frowned. “That’s strange.”

“Which one?”

Helen checked the log.

“Emergency bay exterior camera. Midnight to six a.m.”

Grace called Matteo.

“Someone took the drive.”

“When?”

Helen flipped pages. “No sign-out.”

Grace repeated it.

Matteo’s voice changed. “Leave now.”

“Wait.”

Grace noticed a small envelope wedged behind the storage box.

Her name was written on it.

GRACE BENNETT.

Her hands began to shake.

“What?” Matteo asked.

“There’s something here.”

She opened the envelope.

Inside was a note written by Elena.

Grace,

If you are the one who finds this, then I failed to get out in time. The ambulance camera catches the loading bay, not the crash, but I need someone to see who arrives after me. Salvatore has a habit of cleaning scenes himself.

Do not be brave for me. Be alive for Mia.

Grace pressed the note to her mouth.

Helen whispered, “Oh my God.”

Matteo said, “Grace, talk to me.”

“She knew.”

A sound came from the corridor.

The elevator bell.

Helen’s face changed.

“No one else is authorized down here.”

Matteo heard it through the phone.

“Get out.”

Grace grabbed Elena’s note.

The stairwell was at the opposite end of the annex.

Footsteps approached.

Helen turned off the aisle lights.

The women moved between shelving units.

Grace could hear her own breathing.

A man entered the cage.

Then another.

One said, “Find the backup.”

Grace recognized the second voice before she saw the face.

Salvatore Rizzo.

She froze.

Matteo’s voice whispered through the phone in her pocket. “Grace?”

Rizzo stopped walking.

He had heard it.

“Miss Bennett,” he called into the darkness. “You have caused an extraordinary amount of trouble for a woman who was supposed to hand out medication and mind her own business.”

Grace looked at Helen.

Helen pointed silently toward a red wall box.

FIRE ALARM.

Grace smiled despite herself.

Then she pulled it.

Sirens exploded through the annex.

Sprinklers did not activate, but every security door in the corridor released automatically.

Helen ran one direction.

Grace ran the other.

Rizzo shouted.

She hit the stairwell just as the door above burst open.

Matteo came down three steps at a time.